


Breaking Down

by twitchtipthegnawer



Series: Overwatch Oneshots [13]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-08-28 20:33:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8461993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twitchtipthegnawer/pseuds/twitchtipthegnawer
Summary: Oneshot songfics studying various characters and their relationships. Each is unrelated to the others, and chapters are labelled with the PoV character and song title.





	1. Genji; Coma Baby

_Coma baby, with your sick head; the doctors saved you, but you’re still dead._

Genji was having trouble expressing the gratefulness they’d expected. Why shouldn’t he be grateful, when his bastard brother had nearly taken his life from him? He had only one woman to thank for his survival. It shouldn’t be so hard.

But he didn’t have a heartbeat anymore, and the quiet whirr was a poor substitute. He kept his eyes shut, knowing that they were real but the tears that filled them weren’t. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Angela had succeeded where Hanzo had failed.

_Through your scalp I would like to reach in, so I could pull out the monster you’ve been._

He could feel McCree’s eyes on him during missions. It was half curiosity and half familiarity, and wholly unwelcome. Secrets didn’t last long in Blackwatch, so Genji knew McCree’s history, and he didn’t like the comparison.

Out loud, he insisted that it was because McCree was loud and immature and annoying. Inside his own head, he denied that it was because McCree had just as much blood on his hands, just as much toying with emotions and just as much destruction. And he had come out with a heartbeat that Genji didn’t get to feel anymore.

_But you would do anything to destroy the body that they rescued._

It filtered out toxins automatically, and he couldn’t really taste anymore. But he had a mouth, and fuck what anyone said, his body was damn near invincible now. So different from a fragile human, it disgusted him.

Rubbing alcohol burned dully down his throat, feedback from artificial nerves that never felt quite right. There was laughter around him, and jeers, the other agents drunk and amused by the show Genji was putting on. For once, McCree wasn’t joining in the sounds. Hatred flared bright and hot in Genji’s stomach.

_Your sick little head, so brain damaged, and lying in that hospital bed._

McCree collapsed next to him, breathing hard. “Shit,” he said, sounding as wrung out as Genji felt. For his part, Genji didn’t say anything at all. He was halfway terrified of what might come out if he opened his mouth.

For as weird as it had been, Genji had liked it. And he wished he hadn’t, because sex had been so much of who he was, and if he could still enjoy it then that meant things he didn’t want to think about. Genji was a walking corpse. McCree was trapped in a past he’d not experienced because the truth was too harsh for him to look at. They were lies, both of them, so their pleasure was too.

_Coma baby, the cry of your bones and the sound of your skull when it split on the road._

A scream strangled itself in his throat, dying a silent death as he clutched his head. Flashbacks were normal, Angela had said. Flashbacks were nothing to be ashamed of. Flashbacks would pass.

Sometimes it felt like they were going to go on forever, and fuck everything Angela said. She’d never looked at him with pity in her eyes, and Genji wasn’t sure whether or not he was thankful for it. She’d seen worse injuries than his before. She’d seen patients angrier at being saved. Was it so wrong, that he didn’t want her to see this, too?

_I wish I’d find all the lonely remnants of you that left when your head cracked open._

The sheets stank of sweat and come and sex, but Genji wasn’t going to dig his nose out from them. McCree was still awake, tracing a pattern on his shoulder blade that Genji could barely feel. It was just coincidence that he was following the path of Genji’s old tattoo, but it left his skin tingling all the same. If he’d had anything unscarred, he would’ve had goosebumps.

As it was, he could only lie there and force his breathing to stay even. McCree had a tattoo too, he knew, and Genji’s hands itched with something like temptation. He wanted to trace the marks Deadlock had left, and he hated that he wanted it. McCree had too much he wanted already.

_Lately, I can’t recognize you; the doctors lied when they said they saved you._

Less than a week after Jesse left Overwatch was disbanded, and Genji was left floating in an ocean at storm. As a member of Blackwatch, he was technically exonerated of all his former crimes. But without something to fight, he was useless, so he drifted.

He came to Nepal mostly by coincidence, and he met Zenyatta completely so. He didn’t know how to respond to a monk like him. There was so much joy in Zenyatta, as much as had been in McCree, but his skin was all metal where McCree had been soft.

_You’re just the shell of the boy that you’ve been._

Time didn’t heal, on its own. But time gave other things the opportunity to sooth and scar and grow, and Zenyatta was a master at using time to his advantage. So Genji learned to love the way his blood flowed through his veins in a smooth current instead of pulses, and he learned to love the feeling of metal on his lips.

There wasn’t much about him that Hanzo would recognize, anymore. Genji had a different body, different face, different heart. He could admit that, now, and he only wished he could tell McCree that he hadn’t hated him at all. At least, not at the end.

_And you’re dying, I can feel it._

Hanzo’s bow hurt less than his sword, Genji found. It was strange, like their positions had been reversed. Once, Genji had kneeled before Hanzo. Now Hanzo begged for death, and Genji felt a curl of dread and recognition, and he wondered if this was what the others had seen when they’d looked at him.

Well, it certainly wasn’t what they saw anymore. And Genji could look at his brother with no hate, a heart that was as hard as his body and as capable of love, and he could offer peace. He couldn’t make Hanzo accept, but he could hope.


	2. Reaper; Rampage

_I hear him screaming like late night white trash TV stations._

Reyes had taken in kids before. Didn’t matter if they were technically adults, he still thought of them as kids. Jack said Blackwatch was as good as a pound for taking in strays. Reyes tended to think of it as an orphanage. It wasn’t far from the truth.

But no number of shell shocked child soldiers could’ve prepared him for Jesse McCree. The kid was bitter, but that wasn’t unusual. He had a sadistic sense of humor, and that was normal too. The thing that made Jesse so much of a menace was the way he was a goddamn force of nature. Like a tornado, or a hurricane.

_Black combat boots pacing in through the school building._

He didn’t exactly take to training as well as he could’ve. Then again, he excelled, so maybe he thought he didn’t need it. He was cocksure in the beginning, no matter how badly Overwatch had decimated his gang. He seemed like he’d never learn to work as a team, and he wasn’t even interested in putting up a front.

Which made it all the more disturbing when Reyes sat him down to talk to him. All he had to do was mention that he didn’t exactly have total power, that Overwatch was under more scrutiny with each passing month, that fame couldn’t carry them forever. And Jesse’s face was crumpling, something sweet shining through for the first time. He whispered, “Help me.” It sounded like a prayer, like something Reyes hadn’t heard since he’d rescued Jesse from prison.

_He’s gonna fight the good fight, the noble war._

When Jesse decided to do something, he didn’t half ass it. Reyes wasn’t sure what had finally made him decide where his loyalties lay, but whatever it was he wasn’t about to question it too much. Not when it gave him everything he’d wanted from the kid in the first place.

Jesse threw his back into every mission he was given. Hostage situations were resolved without a single one of their number getting so much as injured. Humans were talked down from what had almost been the fortieth mass shooting of Omnics that year. And though he bragged, Jesse didn’t rest on his laurels; he worked harder, in fact. As if he could erase his years of suffering with good deeds.

_Yeah my baby has a baby, but it’s not me._

The only thing left that Reyes really worried about was Jesse’s love life. He didn’t usually concern himself in that sort of thing, but Jesse was just about the least subtle Blackwatch operative ever. He slept his way through the entire organization, it seemed like, and not a single one of the flings was ever stable enough to be called a relationship.

Maybe he focused on that because it distracted from his own problems. He liked to think he was above that sort of thing, after spending so long wrestling with his demons. He knew what turning a blind eye to his own emotions could do to him. But Jesse was always a rule breaker, and he often dragged other people into his escapades, and. And.

_It’s an AK47 semi-automatic gun, and he loves her more than he loves me._

They didn’t plan it. Reyes insisted that to himself, because he didn’t want to believe that Jesse would plan something like this. It was just bad luck, the simple fact that not every mission could succeed even when they brought the best of the best. Reyes had been stony-faced and silent the whole ride back to the watchpoint, a pillar of strength for his men.

And then Jesse had caught him before he could even walk in for a med check-up and a shower. He’d pulled Reyes by an arm thicker than the skinny kid’s torso, and he’d looked at Reyes with eyes shining in that soft way. “Just once,” he’d said, and kissed like he was dying.

_I don’t care what you say-- If you ever touch him again, I will fuckin’ kill you._

Knowing that it was a nightmare didn’t make it easier. Reyes and Jack hadn’t made any agreement to be exclusive, it wasn’t cheating, but Jack had been a constant in his life so long. Lately, Reyes felt like he’d been drowning constantly.

For one glorious, horrible moment, he’d been able to breathe. He’d held Jesse in his hand, felt the heat of him, felt him living in his hitched breathing and broken heartbeat, and he’d been almost okay. He’d taken apart Jesse and dared to hope that he wouldn’t regret it.

_I’m gonna pull out the goddamn shotgun and blow your damn head off._

Back before the supersoldier program, before the Omnic war, before Jack, Reyes’d had a problem. It hadn’t been as bad as it could’ve been. No one even noticed. But it had been a problem, and sometimes he traced the scars and regretted the past tense.

It wasn’t that he regretted improving. He’d been able to do so much good, working as a part of Overwatch. It was just that he wished he’d been able to do as much, and still maintain this one vice. It was the kind of thing most people didn’t expect of him. That made it all the more tempting. It was a lot like Jesse, that way.

_Do you understand? You little worthless piece of crap!_

Things were already breaking down, Reyes realized. He walked out of the meeting dazed, something bitter on the back of his tongue. They hadn’t decided anything today; politicians never made decisions all at once. But they’d hinted less transparently than they had before. Reyes might’ve had little interest in their stupid game, but he knew what that meant.

This time he was the one to seek out Jesse. He hadn’t brought condoms or lube along, as if that would make it less real, but Jesse turned out to be very prepared. He spread his protege open beneath him, tasted the sun-kissed warmth of his skin. He stroked a body he’d seen gain first muscle and now the beginnings of a pudgy tummy, and realized that if this was what the others had seen, Jesse’d left behind quite a few broken hearts.

_Gunslinger, black duster, delusions of a western._

As the end approached, Reyes found that one of the few things that could bring a smile to his face were the missions. Which was strange, because he never used to smile when he was killing. Even back when there’d been an easy enemy and the kind of war that allowed most soldiers to fall into good versus evil, us versus them.

Now he revelled in it, threw himself into it like it could make him forget all of the shit going on. The mysterious emails he’d been receiving. The fucking meetings, corporate executive after politician after military leader. The fact that he envied the people he murdered.

_He wears his hat on backwards, sets fire to his locker._

Storming away from Jack, Reyes knew he’d just said the wrong thing. He could hardly bring himself to care. He knew he’d been different lately. He knew that he should probably talk to someone. No, not probably. The emails he was getting contained confidential information.

In spite of all that, the storm calmed a little when he got back to his room. He’d regret it eventually. But for now he pulled out his phone, pulled up an image of himself and Jesse on the holovid. Jesse had taken it, and the angle was bad. The milkshake smeared across Reyes’ face was worse.

_He’s gonna fight the good fight, the nobel war._

After Jesse left, Reyes spent hours going over the past months in his head. He noticed things he hadn’t before. He wondered how he could’ve been so oblivious, when it was his job to be a fucking spy.

There was another argument coming, and Reyes was pretty sure it’d be the last one. They’d almost come to blows the week before, and Jack and Reyes always found ways to escalate things. That, and the last email he’d gotten. He thought about the words, “clean slate.”

_Yeah my baby has a baby but it’s not me._

Black smoke came off of him in wisps. His flesh was more damaged than he’d ever seen it before, and that was saying something. But unlike every time before, it didn’t hurt. In fact, it didn’t feel at all. Reyes locked unearthly eyes on Angela, something boiling in his gut.

“How dare you,” he growled. Her eyes were wide, she was swallowing convulsively. Her hand had closed around a syringe with a clean needle. It was empty, but he knew the damage air in his blood could do. He dared her to try silently. He wouldn’t think of it as begging.

_It’s an AK47 gun, and he loves her more than he loves me._

Talon was surprisingly accommodating. Or perhaps not surprising, considering how long they’d courted him. They gave him the information they’d been dancing around ever since their first contact, and they left Reyes to take his time to process it. No amount of time seemed like enough.

It was the kind of thing that conspiracy theorists believed. That the god programs could have a plan beyond killing people in the first place. That their plan would be… that. It seemed impossible, but then Reyes exhaled death and realized that the world wasn’t nearly as straightforward and sensible as he’d thought.

_I’ll bet you’ve never seen the smile of a savage-springfield 67H._

Finding out that Amélie had been alive this whole time was bittersweet, to say the least. Reaper took to using her new codename as quickly as he could, if only because it was easier. He wouldn’t admit it, though. Not when he was expending so much energy looking like a cold-blooded machine. If all went well, he’d have Talon under his thumb in a year.

He wasn’t allowed on missions half as often as he’d wanted them. One thing that had carried over between Reyes and Reaper had been the love of death, though Reyes hadn’t gotten the chance to get used to it. Reaper, however, knew exactly the shape of every form of death he could inflict. He still didn’t kill unnecessarily, but when he did…

_With his blurry face and cracked voice gone through the VHS tapes._

Reaper didn’t tell anyone he did it. Amélie was the only one who might notice, and even she hadn’t known McCree. It was the last bit of softness that Reaper allowed himself, this desperate attempt to keep him alive the only way he knew how. Talon was even more a den of snakes than Overwatch had been.

So Reaper took advantage of the slack his bloodlust had bought him. He was no hacker, but with the right person in his debt the thing he asked for was easy. Jesse McCree became a ghost in Talon’s systems, a hinted at presence that couldn’t be confirmed or tracked. Much the way Reaper was.

_Yeah my baby has a baby, but it’s not me._

Overwatch was back together, and Jesse was with them. Of course he was. Without Reaper’s wavering morals, without the crumbling bureaucracy, Jesse would thrive in that kind of environment. Surrounded by friends. Given a purpose.

There wasn’t a way to keep an eye on the kid without risking Talon’s mission. But the glimpses Reaper caught were more than enough, McCree growing closer to members new and old, his easy friendliness infectious as always. He looked out for his teammates effectively. Reaper just hoped they wouldn’t have to meet on the battlefield.


	3. Soldier 76; Executioner

_Baby, you have to pay in this way or another._

The supersoldier program wasn’t comfortable. The supersoldier program wasn’t easy. Nothing was comfortable or easy during the omnic crisis.

Jack felt death hovering on the edges of his vision when they gave him his injections. It was there in the space between encroaching blackness and the inside of his skull, waiting for him to acknowledge it. He bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood. He didn’t say a single word. He held his arm out for another shot, and didn’t need the velcro bindings so many others did.

_In this life or the next._

Metal and oil and gunpowder and blood. His nose was burning from the fumes, his eyes burning from the sweat dripping into them. It was telling that he couldn’t smell his own stink anymore, that the battlefield had laid carnage so thick over the ground that every mundane thing was drowned out. What had once been a mall was now a bombed-out shell populated by literal killing machines.

Behind him, a solid weight was pressed to his back. Gabriel motherfucking Reyes, Jack called him. The name just didn’t feel finished without the expletive. He didn’t have to look to know that it was Gabe who had his back; it was always, only ever Gabe.

_For as long as we’ve known each other,_

Two years out it was surreal to think they’d considered themselves adults at eighteen. Seeing family die in front of a Bastion’s gun sucked. Seeing the mincemeat even a common house servant could make of a child sucked.

But nothing could replace the grind of time. Nothing could quite break down their innocence the way simple exposure had. Jack couldn’t remember the last time he went outside and didn’t hear screaming.

_You’ve been playing this game with death._

Reyes was just about the last person Jack knew who could laugh during sex. All those barely-men bunking together, adrenaline high and fears higher, of course they all slept around.

Most of those one-night stands were hurried and feverish, almost dreamlike in how quickly they could start and end. Reyes was the only one who would break down laughing when Jack got his pants stuck around his ankles. It was almost like he was a completely different person in bed.

_One day you will be tried--_

Truth be told, Jack wasn’t sold on Overwatch at first. The only reason he bought into it was Reyes, with his steely-determined eyes. Reyes could have told Jack the sky was green, and he would’ve believed it.

Working under Reyes instead of beside him was weird for a hot minute. But in battle, they still stood back to back. In battle they still hissed and spat orders at one another like cats. In battle they still kicked ass and kissed like it was part of the fight and moved like they could see from the others’ eyes.

_On the execution line._

In other places the omnic crisis ended with a whimper. In other places life had resumed “as normal as possible” already. In other places there were kids playing and teenagers going to school and idiots dressing in suits for their nine-to-five jobs.

They didn’t have that option. They’d signed up for this, after all. So they were right there with every goddamn bang, every battle that seemed like it might be the last. Plane ride to Korea and sleepless weeks on the coast. Train ride to Germany and screeching, tortured metal. Omnium after omnium in the triple, then double, then single digits.

_He’ll strap you in & you will fry,_

He missed the celebration party because he was in the hospital with Reyes. All limbs intact, thank god, but five broken ribs between the two of them.

Secretly, they were both a little glad to have an excuse. They didn’t mind parties, but it would’ve been awkward if they’d been treated as guests of honor. This way they could celebrate privately.

_Like fireworks on the fourth of July._

Gabriel was hot as a brand inside him. The doctor had told them no strenuous activity overnight, but what did they care? They had the room to themselves, curtains drawn and night blessedly silent but for the sound of their grunts and moans.

That night Jack was pretty fucking far from laughing. He rode Gabriel’s cock for what felt like hours, wrung an orgasm out of him and then clamped his teeth to Reyes’ shoulder to keep him pressed deep. He heard Gabe comment on the things a farm boy learned in the hay and was too preoccupied by his smooth-as-butter voice to notice the words.

_Baby, you have to pay in this way or another._

For about five minutes after Jack was given command of Overwatch, he just sort of stared. And tried to process what was happening. And stared. And stared.

It ran so counter to how Jack saw himself. He was one of the guys, a soldier chugging back drinks with the others. He didn’t realize they had seen him differently. Didn’t realize his friendly rivalry with Gabriel went beyond competing for the best scores in hand to hand combat.

_Whether you can cry or not._

T.V. cameras were as common as machine guns used to be. Sure, he’d always been surrounded by both, but the journalists he was used to were a bit less _polished_ than the ones he saw now. At least machine guns stayed the same. At least the places he visited, Australia with their soot-smeared smiles and Russia with their distrusting eyes, reminded him of home.

A piece of him was disgusted that he thought of the war as “home.” But he didn’t know how to explain it, and when he tried to ask Gabriel about it-- the laugh he heard was different from the ones he was used to.

_Oh, how sad to face the judgement--_

Working himself ragged was a thin comfort, but it was a comfort nonetheless. Morrison didn’t know shit about science or the environment or political mediation, so he learned. He went to his subordinates and _asked._ He studied so much he’d be giving old Mrs. Parker from second grade a heart attack.

If he sometimes lay awake at night, unable to rest despite all the hell he’d put his body through, there was no one to notice; no one to share his bed with and give a _chance_ to notice.

_Unprepared to meet your god._

Maybe it would’ve been easier if Jack could blame Gabriel. Maybe it would’ve been easier if Jack could blame the UN. But really, he had no one to blame at all. Not even himself. Fate had just worked out, and it had worked out in no one’s favor.

Though Reyes had always been the religious one, Jack found himself praying more and more often. Another reminder of second grade, of sunday school and endless hours in itchy clothing. He kneeled beside his bed and tried to remember the words he’d said in his head back then.

_He will wear a rubber coat,_

Despite all the fragments of pain between them, they still found themselves together more often than not. Sometimes it was for fancy parties or P.R. stunts.

Sometimes it was for the dark, for the humid air between two overheating bodies. Sometimes it was for “fuck, I thought you were dead,” after a nightmare. Sometimes it was for kisses that felt more like blades than softness, more like “I’m not breakable please just _hurt me like you mean it.”_

_Shoot lightning through the vital veins;_

Even though he didn’t want to, he was getting more comfortable with his role. He’d always had a natural smile, a booming laugh. He could look appropriately mournful at the funeral of someone he’d never even known.

Even the models throwing themselves at him became normal. Sometimes he took them up on their offers. Pretty men with sculpted muscles so different from the rough-hewn soldier bodies he was used to. They all seemed so surprised when he said he didn’t top.

_They think that you emit the light,_

It wasn’t a lie he’d ever meant to tell. He’d just been doing his job. He valued honesty, maybe more than he should. He didn’t mean to give false impressions.

He couldn’t exactly blame McCree’s attitude towards him on bad first impressions, though. “High ‘n mighty bastard who sits on his throne and points his fuckin’ finger where he wants the dirty work done.” It didn’t matter that Gabriel had immediately barked at the kid to shut up, smile dropping off his face as if it’d never been there. The insult cut deep.

_But you only take it in._

Pure selfishness. International politics were too complicated for one man to understand, no matter how hard he studied. But selfishness was a powerful motivator. And selfishness said he wanted to be a hero again, wanted to see people saved under his command. Wanted to laugh with Gabriel again.

The P.R. nightmare was exactly as bad as he’d thought it would be, but he wasn’t going to miss this party for the world. He smiled the grim smile of a man staring death in the face, even though he hadn’t had to do that in a very long time. He caught Gabriel’s eyes and saw a grin like a skull.

_The man in uniform will come,_

Their last night together didn’t feel like a _last._ It felt like the beginning of something, like renewal, like Jack having hope again after a world that had steadily disappointed him since the end of the crisis. It felt a little like falling in love.

But when Jack woke up he was alone in his bed. He didn’t think too much of it, or he tried not to. But he’d been over thinking more and more often lately. And Gabriel had been over thinking more and more often lately. And the realization that heroes were made up of media campaigns was a constant buzz in his brain.

_And he will stick it in your arm;_

Mid-laugh, the watchpoint exploded. The laugh itself had been half explosion-- startled out of him in the middle of a serious conversation.

Hadn’t that always been Gabriel’s strength? Startling laughs out of men who thought they’d gone far past any kind of humor. The fire, the sudden pain, the shockwave driving him and Gabriel apart and back and _through walls..._ if that didn’t take him past humor, nothing could. But then he dragged himself out of the wreckage.

_You’ll scream out for your father,_

Nightmares weren’t new, of course. Every soldier 76 had ever known had them. He remembered waking Gabriel from one once, feverish kisses against clammy cheeks. The most gentle awakening he could think of. His awakening from the rubble was much more abrupt, the sudden alertness of hitting the ground at the end of a dream where you’re falling forever, a bomb dropped from an uncaring aircraft.

Except this nightmare wasn’t ending. He told himself the headlines could be wrong. He told himself he’d survived. He remembered Gabriel’s brain splattered over concrete chunks.

_And in darkness I pray you_

Vigilante justice had captured his imagination as a child. He’d loved superheroes. His dad had always ruffled his hair affectionately, laughed that he was glad his son had good, american values, like Superman.

Unfortunately, he knew Dad wouldn’t be proud of him if he could see him now. Back turned even when Winston held out a helping hand. Scored with scars that had been just a bit too shallow to give him what he wanted more and more each day. He wasn’t young anymore, but the injections still ran through his veins.

_Never find him again._

Black smoke choked him, slithered into his lungs semi-solid and slimy. It was worse than the air in a battlefield, because while death was there it was never like _this._ Cloying and horrifying. This wasn’t the first time he’d come across Reaper, but it never got any easier.

That was why he’d never exactly thought of Reaper as Gabriel. At least, that’s what he told himself. Gabriel may have been perfectly capable of killing, but he’d also been so full of life.

_(Everybody fries in Texas)_

Fighting was still familiar. After all these years, they could _connect_ while fighting in a way they couldn’t anywhere else. When ammo ran out and guns were knocked out of hands, when they were down to raw fists, Jack could _feel_ it.

Like that, he couldn’t deny shit. Gabriel was the only one in the world who had ever been able to move like that. Nevermind that his movements were obscured by black mist; nevermind that he could fucking _teleport _now. Gabriel was alive. And Jack didn’t know what that meant, but as his fist hit solid flesh he felt the strange urge to call Winston.__


End file.
